


The Adventure of the Beneficent Malady

by Amedia



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-24
Updated: 2010-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amedia/pseuds/Amedia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A patient's niece presents Watson with a curious case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventure of the Beneficent Malady

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [La aventura de la enfermedad beneficiosa](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243954) by [Ertal77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ertal77/pseuds/Ertal77)



> Written fifteen or more years ago for the enjoyment of a local Sherlock Holmes club.

"Blood, Watson, I must have blood!" cried Sherlock Holmes, bursting into my consulting room. My new receptionist trailed behind, making feeble "but sir, do you have an appointment" noises. Her look of alarm began to fade at my matter-of-fact response.

"Of course, old man, whatever you need." I fixed my eye on the receptionist, wondering if I'd have to send her round to the hospital lab I contracted with for a live rabbit. "Do you need fresh blood?"

Holmes followed my gaze to the girl. "I'm not sure. . . " he said slowly.

For no particular reason she ran screaming out of the room. A moment later I heard the outer door to the street slam behind her.

"Really, Holmes," I chided. "I lose more girls that way."

Holmes had the grace to look abashed. "Sorry," he said. "But I've just invented what appears to be a most effective way to test the age of bloodstains by examining the rate of decay of certain particulate matter normally found in the bloodstream. Shh! What's that?"

We both heard the outer door to my office open. Had the receptionist regained her nerve and returned? I exchanged a glance with Holmes and moved to the door connecting the two rooms.

A young lady hesitated upon the threshold to the waiting room. "It's all right," I called. "You may come in. The girl has just stepped out."

She stepped daintily into the waiting room and I escorted her into the consulting room. "Miss Warburton, isn't it? I've been treating your uncle for some years. I believe we were introduced when I made some house calls last year."

"Yes, Dr. Watson, that's quite correct." I ushered her to a chair and she sat gracefully down. She was a charming creature with fair hair and a lovely figure. I seated myself behind my desk. She looked inquiringly at the other occupant of the room, who stood leaning against the window frame looking out.

"This is my friend and colleague, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," I said. "I assure you, you may speak in his presence as freely as in my own; his discretion is absolute." I took in her worried appearance. "Have you come to see me about the Colonel? Is he unwell?"

She looked down at her hands for a moment, pulling off her gloves and fingering them nervously. "He is well enough in body, Doctor, but I fear for--I fear for his mind! His behavior of the last few months has grown increasingly erratic. I tried to persuade him to come and see you, but he does not perceive that there is anything wrong. Indeed, he said something to the extent that you were a fine fellow, but that your profession extended only to the care of the appendix!" She eyed me uncertainly. "That is wrong, isn't it?" I nodded, and she continued. "He sat for a photograph recently and I was able to bring a copy with me." She took a small framed photograph from her pocketbook. "As you can see, he seems to have lost weight recently."

"I can assure you there's nothing wrong with that, Miss Warburton," I said, studying the photograph. "He will only be the better for reducing that avoirdupois." I laid the picture back down on my desk.

"Indeed, I understand. But I thought I should mention it as one of the many changes that has come over him. He has taken to making bizarre statements, seemingly out of nowhere."

"Could you give me an example?" I asked. I noticed that Holmes, though pretending to look out the window, was following the young lady's report with keen attention, and I was determined to obtain all the details necessary to obtain his insight on the matter.

"Well, the other day I was looking at a catalog of lady's wear, tweed coats and such. I had put the catalog down and was gazing into space, when my uncle said, 'Mr. Carroll does have such a knack for logical nonsense, hasn't he?'"

"Were you in fact thinking of that author at the time?" I asked her gently.

"No, in fact, I wasn't," she said. "Another odd thing he does is that periodically he gets down on the carpet on all fours or even on his stomach and propels himself about on his elbows, examining the floor in great detail. Sometimes he makes little exclamations, but we can't understand them. He has the housemaids quite in a dither, but he insists he's not checking up on their cleaning!

"And sometimes when a person has just walked in the house, my uncle will make the strangest greeting! Last week his first words to the vicar were, 'I see your cricket team did not win the big match yesterday!' The vicar was utterly puzzled by the remark."

Holmes turned suddenly from the window. "Does the vicar follow cricket?"

"Not at all! But he remembered later that he had lent his overcoat to a friend who did attend a match, and it was the one he was wearing when he came to see my uncle." I nodded. An idea was beginning to fall into place. I rose from my chair and began to pace, thinking.

Holmes came over from the window and took the photograph from the desk, examining it intently. "Mercury poisoning, Watson!" Holmes suddenly burst out. He waved the photograph triumphantly. "Observe the distinct groove worn into his teeth on the left side, particularly the lower bicuspid. I deduce that the Colonel has fallen into the unfortunate nervous habit of chewing upon thermometers, which inevitably break under the pressure, releasing their deadly cargo of quicksilver."

"If he had mercury poisoning, Holmes, he'd have the attendant tremors and other accompanying symptoms. Miss Warburton has reported that he is in sound physical health." I took the photograph and looked at it again. "That groove is where he clenches his pipe between his teeth."

Holmes acknowledged my objection with a sharp nod and proceeded to a fresh set of deductions. "Lead, then. I understand the Colonel, as a result of his controlling personality, does all the household accounts himself?" He directed this remark to the young lady, who bobbed her pretty head in acquiescence. "Well, then, the source of his madness is clear. The Colonel is constantly exposed to the lead in the pencils that he uses, hence, he is suffering the symptoms of lead poisoning! O unhappy fate to befall one so conscientious!"

"Holmes," I said, "surely you know that pencil lead is actually graphite, a harmless carbon substance."

"No," he said calmly, "and now that you have told me I shall do my best to forget it, except as a footnote to a disconfirmed hypothesis." He sighed. "It is perilous to theorize further in advance of the facts. Perhaps we could visit the gentleman's residence and examine his toothbrush, his boot-blacking kit, and the scuff marks on his umbrella stand."

"Wait, Holmes," I said, holding up my hand. My friend halted on his way to the door. "I believe I can settle this mystery once and for all. The symptoms the young lady has described do form a pattern that I am able to recognize."

"Well, Watson, as you are a medical man this matter does fall within your purview rather than mine," Holmes conceded graciously.

"To tell the truth, Holmes, it falls more within my bailiwick as a writer than as a doctor, and specifically within my particular field of writing.

Holmes assumed an air of eager expectancy--my field of writing was, after all, his modest self. Miss Warburton lifted her pretty, tearstained face and said, "Do tell us, Dr. Watson, and relieve my intolerable burden of uncertainty!"

I smiled down at her delicate porcelain complexion, framed by tendrils of the finest spun gold and starred with eyes of the purest cornflower--but I digress. I said to her, "Each symptom, taken individually, may seem meaningless or even irrational. But taken as a collection, as a syndrome if you will, the pattern is revealed not as irrational but the very pinnacle of rationality! This wriggling about on the floor muttering indistinct observations, the efforts to draw inductive conclusions from observable phenomena, the attempt to deduce the content of thought from a person's aspect, even the metaphor referring to the whole physical body as mere appendix . . . these are all efforts to imitate the best and wisest man I have ever known. It is true your uncle suffers from a malady, but it is a most beneficent malady."

I drew a deep breath. "In other words, Miss Warburton, your uncle is a Sherlock Holmes fan."

The young lady became even prettier, if that were imaginable, when her sorrowful face was transfigured by a joyful smile. "Then there is nothing to worry about?"

"Not a thing, my dear young lady," I assured her.

A faint smile was also discernible upon the normally stoic features of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. "I am sorry to have been in any way the cause of your difficulty, Miss Warburton," he said gallantly.

"Oh, not at all, I assure you," she said. "Well, I must be taking my leave."

"As must I, Watson," Holmes said. "Perhaps I may be permitted to escort you home, Miss Warburton." I remembered that the Colonel and his niece lived quite close to the hospital laboratory.

"Why, that's very kind of you."

"Not at all, not at all. I have a kind of ulterior motive, you see." He turned his gaze upon the young lady. "I must have blood--"

Miss Warburton screamed and ran out the room. "You know, Holmes," I said wearily. " I lose more patients that way." I picked up her gloves and handed them to Holmes. "Perhaps you could drop these off on your way to the lab."


End file.
